Forum:Sandbox
Unit Entry discussion Here are some ideas for the unit information page. 1. I'm still iffy about text above the TOC box. In my opinion, it should be the TOC followed by the "fluffy" Description, then the game-specific Overview. The flavor text can go between the TOC and Description. What do you folks think? 2. Some of us have gone back and forth with the UnitInfobox. If we keep only the information that stays consistent (ie. same across all attacks, never gets leveled up), we're left with a pretty barren screen. Something along the lines of: : I hope we all agree that this is pretty bland, and some readers only need a quick reference and probably won't bother reading the whole thing. So we should be listing Rank 1 information (including the basic attack). Should we just assume this is Rank 1, or should we explicitly state that it's rank 1, as indicated in this Sandbox version? 3. We should try to be consistent with the time format. Let's pick one! 1 Hour, 45 Minutes 1 hour + 45 minutes 1 hour & 45 minutes 1h 45m (game uses this format) 4. Some of us have also discussed how we should do the weapon attacks. With the latest update (1.3), some units have multiple attacks, each with their own stats and individual ammo supply for each attack! I like what User:Maehan has been doing to address this, and I just recently tweaked his stuff to work better, and look like a folder :) 4a. In the first example, the two attacks (which fall under the same weapon), are listed. Weapon's only have "ammo" and "reload" that is consistent (from what I can find). The different attacks can be of different ranges, LoF, damage types, etc., so I removed those values from the WeaponInfoBox. The WeaponLevelBox should contain all that. 4b. The next example, I'm using the already existing UnitAttackBox, as a way to save effort. However, I do like User:Maehan's Ranked Power/Offense. 4c. In this example, I treated it as two separate weapons (which most tanks have - turret + machine gun), using the float=left and float=right parameters to keep them separated. This is just to show what two weapons might look like in a unit entry. Comments? Suggestions? 5. The Rank statistics template is ever evolving... I just noticed that the Sandbox is using a new one, Template:DynamicUnitInfobox, versus the currently utilized Template:Unitlevelbox. Anyways, my concern is how we should stat consistent and still make sense to the readers. If we use the WeaponLevelBox, which contains Ranked Power & Offense, then I think the Rank box can just simply read: : to be continued... Luxionmk2 23:56, May 11, 2012 (UTC) Discussion On the time matter, We should use the format in accordance to the game. Most of these ideas seem great. 00:16, May 14, 2012 (UTC) RE: On point #1 I agree, I think TOC should always be the first thing presented since it allows users to immediately jump to the section they want. On point #2, I think we should explicitly say that it is Rank 1 information and list the attack type whose damage we are representing with a 'Standard Attack' box or something to make it clear what we are using as a reference for the special case of Heavy Recon which has two attack types coming out the gate. One #3, I think we should use the in-game time format. I'll come back to #4 maybe later :) For #5, I split the two in order to represent the differing values across weapons as they rank. You can add offense and power to the DynamicUnitInfobox, but I donno how much you gain really since power and offense is fairly meaningless when not attached to a weapon. But I don't really have a strong opinion on it. Maehan 14:45, May 14, 2012 (UTC) Are we ready to roll out the attack changes at least Additionally, I think we can probably begin rolling out the attack section changes at least. They seem fairly uncontested and any future changes to them are likely to be modifications of the underlying template which shouldn't require too much rework in the individual unit pages. If everyone agrees, we can start to update unit pages with these two new templates while we decide how to handle the other sections. continued: Rank Progression format Left for the weekend, so back now to finish my original thought and ideas! Since Offense and Damage/Power are different between weapons, and units get a flat bonus when they rank up (eg. "+5 Offense"), I'm wondering if the table should just list what you get when you rank up. In my opinion, it's easier to understand and comprehend when you read the NEW value. |- |colspan=2 align=left| Pros: |- |colspan=2 align=left| Cons: More difficult to see the changes |- | Idea #1: Only show deltas |align="center" | |- |colspan=2 align=left| Pros: Offense and Power does not require additional attention for different weapons (weapon rank stats included in WeaponInfoBox |- |colspan=2 align=left| Cons: Not as easy for the reader to evaluate the unit's statistics. |- | Idea #2: Show both deltas and new values |align="center" | |- |colspan=2 align=left| Pros: More detail and information. |- |colspan=2 align=left| Cons: Very, very cluttered. Doesn't work for Dodge since we don't know initial value. |- |colspan=2 align=left| Notes: The extra bolding in the 5th rank is extra work for us contributors. |- | Idea #3: Show base value, then show deltas |align="center" | |- |colspan=2 align=left| Pros: A little cleaner |- |colspan=2 align=left| Cons: Still requires work on the reader's part. Same issue as above for Dodge. |- | Idea #4: Idea #3, but with a new column, "Final Stats", added. Also, not showing +0 delta. |align="center" | |- |colspan=2 align=left| Pros: A little cleaner, includes final/total to evaluate unit strength/worth. |- |colspan=2 align=left| Cons: A lot more work for the wikia contributors :P |- |} What do my fellow contributors think? Before I began my grand edit and reformatting crusade, I'd like to know what we can agree with? Of course, after you all decide and comment, I'll begin with the Sandbox first. Luxionmk2 16:13, May 14, 2012 (UTC) I personally like idea two. It shows everything at a glance, whether you're comparing units or just researching the one. Just need a clear explanation on what's being shown. GeoFruck (talk) 19:05, July 24, 2012 (UTC) Unlock Requirements consistency Oh, if you recall from my earlier example: : I added the building that does the training to the "unlock requirements" for units. Do you think that's necessary, or a "no-brainer" for the readers? We have 4 "training" facilities. Next, should we use commas or pluses? "Level 2 + Barracks" versus "Level 2, Barracks" Luxionmk2 16:18, May 14, 2012 (UTC) Rank Progression cont. I personally like Idea #2 the most, with maybe some minor revisions. Maybe something more like; Text alignment in the vertical axis could stand to be cleaned up, but hopefully you get the idea. As far as unit requirements go, I say leave in the unit production buildings and use comma seperated values, but '+''s work as well. Maehan 16:50, May 14, 2012 (UTC) Unit Progression I personally like Idea #2 the most, with maybe some minor revisions. Maybe something more like; Text alignment in the vertical axis could stand to be cleaned up, but hopefully you get the idea. I also say include the production building text under the pre-reqs section and use comma seperation, but it isn't a strong preference. Maehan 16:52, May 14, 2012 (UTC) :I don't like the line break making the rows taller. How about emphasis on the changes. Power was a bad example to use since the actual value is different across different weapons. I changed it to only show change/delta. : :In this example, I made the value bold. : :I don't like the bolded values as much, because there's just too much bolding. Using a different color is too much work, unless we can somehow include it in templates w/o much trouble. Last example is #1, with the final column, because I like the idea of seeing the final value without the changes/deltas: : :Luxionmk2 22:52, May 14, 2012 (UTC) ::The line breaks were an attempt to give a little visual seperation between the two types of data, but I am fine with removing them. ::I think the emphasis should be on the raw values at each level personally, and not on deltas or on the final rank 5 values. Mainly because while some units (Troopers for instance) are really easy to get to level 5, some are a nightmare (Super Tank) and the average player will never get there. So I like the idea of someone being able to just glance at the table and see where a unit is at at a given power level. Deltas can certainly be included mind you, I just don't know if they should be the focus. ::Granted this isn't a super strong opinion and I'd be fine with whatever really. ::Maehan 14:22, May 15, 2012 (UTC) Once I get my iTouch jailbroken again, I'll explore the game's files and get level up stats and everything. 14:48, May 17, 2012 (UTC) Template Updates Ok, so the most recent updates I've rolled out to the templates we've been working on are as follows; DynamicUnitInfoBox now will automagically format information to give deltas et al. You shouldn't have to muck around with presentation issues while entering data. So hp2 will be set using 'hp2 = 60' instead of 'hp2 = 60 (+5)'. Our template will apply all the formatting. The code was sort of convoluted but it makes changing things much easier. WeaponLevelBox will now automatically fill damage and offense provided you supply a mindmg value at rank 1, a maxdmg value at rank 1, the number of attacks in a salvo (optional) and a baseoffense number representing the offense at rank 1. You can still over-ride the autogenerated values by specifying damage# and offense#. Next up; incorporating rank into the autoformatting code. Right now if you don't get an attack until rank 3, you will need to manually blank out damage1, damage2, offense1, and offense2. That is messy. So I'll be adding a conditional that should automatically blank out attack values that aren't possible. Edit: Ok this is done. So now we shouldn't have to ever define offense#, and we should only need to define damage# for Grenadiers. The template should handle all other cases as long as rank is provided alongside mindmg, maxdmg, and baseoffense. This stuff will (hopefully) make updating all the units much much easier. It will also allow us to modify the way data is displayed without having to manually update each and every unit. Grenadier is updated and incorporates a lot of the special case behavior, so it is a good one to take a peek at if you want to see how this all flows out. Unit Information Summary Ok, I think most of the templating and data entry work has been (mostly) completed. But one thing really sticks out and that is the summary information for a unit. I'm going to be changing the sandbox'ed page to try out a new variant where we split the rank 1 summary information from the unchanging unit properties (similar to how it currently is) and only provide a broad overview of rank 1 unit statistics. Really, including things like bravery is not going to be useful to a new user since I don't think it is really perfectly clear to anyone how bravery interacts with suppression and offense. So I'll probably be making it minimalist in nature. Maehan 19:16, May 23, 2012 (UTC) :The question is, who's to decide what's important to the reader? In my opinion, ammo and reload are extraneous information too, but cooldown is important. In some cases, ammo and reload are very important. I don't want to be mislead into thinking the Rocket Truck's cooldown is really 1, when in fact it's effectively 8, despite it having 4 ammo. Why such craziness Z2?! :In short, Bravery is pretty useless. Heck, I don't even think it really matters in the game unless the unit has multiple attacks. Offense and Defense are important since they both replace the old "accuracy". :Anyways, keep up the good work! I'm just running around providing data and cleaning up now. Spending more time off-wikia collecting data.Luxionmk2 23:54, May 23, 2012 (UTC) ::Well right, but the reader can always just scroll down. I mean it isn't as though we are hiding anything. There will always be some subjectivity on a summary like this. I'd rather just make an executive decision of some sort. ::Maehan 05:11, May 24, 2012 (UTC) Hello Well I have rejailbroken my iTouch. I have found the animations and stuff, but I can't view them because Z2Live has made their own file type which I cannot open. 18:26, June 1, 2012 (UTC)